t-squared Fire Ramp Calculator

This tool calculates a t-squared (time squared) heat release rate (HRR) curve, which is commonly used to estimate transient fire growth for fire protection design purposes.

The t-squared parabolic growth equation is given by $\dot Q = \alpha t^2$ , where $\dot Q$ is the HRR (kW), $\alpha$ is the fire growth coefficient (kW/s²), and t is time (s).

Some commonly used fire growth coefficients are provided, or a custom coefficient can be specified. The t-squared fire ramp can be configured to grow until a specified HRR or time is attained. The output is a plot of the HRR vs. time.

Additionally, a spreadsheet of the results (CSV file) and Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) syntax (TXT file) can also be output and saved.

This calculator is powered by the free and open source tools Python, Numpy, and matplotlib, and the source code is freely available here.

Please send any bug reports or comments to me at koverholt@gmail.com.

t-squared Fire Ramp Calculator

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